The Fruit-box as lifesaver?

A lot of companies opt for a vending machine instead of offering healthy snacks for free, like a ‘fruit-box’. In my previous blog, ‘Pizza is cheaper than salad’, we looked at the real price of meals in canteens. So what are the costs of investing in a vending machine over free fruit offerings to your staff?

A quick browse pointed me to the ‘Vending 300*’ a vending machine which will set you back around $ 5,000.-. Off course, this machine, will get you ‘flex shelf technology with movable dividers’ and an ‘easy to use customer interface with large LED display’. Buy your snacks wholesale and you are in business!

In comparison with the humble fruit-box, the vending machine eventually will pay back its own purchase. The fruit box never will.

Or does it? A research done among 800 nurses showed an interesting insight. Nurses who snack healthy made far less mistakes than those nurses who snacked on crisps and chocolate. The same research showed that having breakfast decreased the amount of failures among these nurses. So while the patients need to be nil by mouth, the contrary is true for nurses. Healthy snacks and time to eat a proper breakfast reduces the risk of failures among the nurses.

Hang on! Healthy eating potentially could prevents mistakes! Then wouldn’t you as a patient hope that your nurse at the ER had their breakfast? Had an apple instead of chocolate before inserting a cannula?? Would providing healthy snacks become part of the health care and safety procedure in favour of the welfare of the patients?

Maybe we could take it further to the companies in which clients or employees run a risk of bodily harm in case of mistakes, like companies working with heavy machinery or chemicals. A company is required by law to do everything in their power to avoid said mistakes, why not include this option as well? Pilots and co-pilots eat a different meal on the same flight, why not extend those rules by providing regular healthy fresh snacks? Could we potentially be saving lives by investing in a fruit box instead of the ‘Vending 300*’?